PEORIA — Four people trapped in a West Bluff apartment during a 2010 house fire had little chance to escape, a Peoria fire investigator told jurors Thursday.

The fire was started in the only stairwell upstairs, sending intense heat and thick smoke into the upper floor apartment of 1212 N. University St., Division Chief Phil Maclin of the Peoria Fire Department said.

“One of the things we teach in fire prevention is to crawl underneath the smoke, but here, the soot was from the ceiling to the floor,” he told jurors. Soot, jurors have learned, is indicative of smoke. “They (the victims) were overcome by heat and they were overcome by inhaling those carbons in their air. It was a very short time for them.”

The jury heard testimony all day regarding the horrific blaze and its aftermath. One man, Aunterrio Barney, 37, is on trial for murder and arson in connection with the April 21, 2010, blaze.

Youlandice Simmons, 24, her pregnant sister, Brianna Simmons, 22, and 19-year-old Darresse Roddy died that morning. The son of Youlandice Simmons, 2-year-old Darryl Miller Jr., died the next day at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield.

Maclin was emphatic the fire “wasn’t natural” and ruled out electrical malfunction. Rather, he said, the fire appears to have started with gasoline in the stairwell and an “open flame” such as a match or a lighter. An ember from a cigarette would not likely have started the fire, he also said.

Prosecutors say it was an angry Barney who set the fire in retaliation for being ignored by Youlandice Simmons.

To that end, they presented evidence that Barney’s fingerprint was on a gas can found a few house away from 1212 N. University St., and they are expected to present several voice mail messages Friday that they say have Barney threatening Youlandice Simmons after she didn’t answer his calls.

His attorney, Hugh Toner, has told jurors his client didn’t set the blaze.

Earlier Thursday, firefighter William Hanks said the fire was so intense that when he broke an upper floor window to get into a room, thick black smoke spewed from of the building. The fire was so hot it burned him through his fire-retardant protective gear, he said.

“It was total darkness,” he told jurors. “From floor to ceiling, there was thick, black smoke.”

Hanks and another fire official, Ed Olehy, both said when they entered the room, they immediately found three bodies lying near the window. A few feet away was Miller.

“As the light from my flashlight swept the room, I saw a tiny leg and a diaper,” Hanks said of the frantic scene. “I rushed over and got him out of the house.”

Olehy described a scene that seemed like hell on earth. The heat was so intense that initially he and others were worried a “flash over” — where everything spontaneously combusts after the room reaches a certain temperature — was a very real possibility.

However, they knew others were in the house, having rescued a man from the porch roof. The smoke was so thick, the firefighters told jurors that they had to move through the room by feel. When they tried to remove a person from the room, they accidentally grabbed two different people as they couldn’t see clearly.

The second-floor courtroom has been packed during every session with several friends and family members of the victims. A few cried and some left the room when the firefighters described how they found the bodies.

The pictures shown later to Maclin clearly illustrate the destructive power of the fire. They show charred and soot-covered doors and siding. Some doors were burned away. Windows failed, he said, because the heat was so intense that it caused the metal panes to collapse inward.

Siding on a neighboring house appeared to be warped and melted.

The trial could wrap up Friday but it more likely will continue Monday. If convicted, Barney faces a mandatory life sentence.

Andy Kravetz can be reached at 686-3283 or akravetz@pjstar.com. For live courtroom updates, follow him on Twitter @andykravetz.

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